Only a complete short-sighted moron would sh#t all over their state's largest city. Baltimore has the potential to be a powerhouse, yet MD suburban and rural residents repeatedly cut off their nose to spite their face.

So much untapped potential that is wasted in that city. Gorgeous architecture, a history that is centered at the creation of this country, cultural institutions that have spanned a century.....and yet MD residents continually use the city as a whipping boy.

Do you realize the radiating positive economics effects a strong, vibrant, safe Baltimore would have on the rest of the state?

It's incredible to me that in an era where we are seeing the fruits of re-urbanization across the country, Baltimore is still struggling. To me, that signals a lack of leadership and buy-in from the Powers That Be in Maryland. #wimps

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Anonymous wrote:I'm not murdering anyone. Neither are my neighbors.

If every person in Baltimore could just do that, and THAT alone, this problem would be solved.

Don't preach to me. I grew up poor AF in southwestern VA in a little squalid mining town you've never even heard of. Everyone was I knew was poor. But we didn't kill each other.

And this is why you're not an expert at solving the problems of inner cities. Don't have any actual ideas that might work in the real world? Then no need to spit out your holier-than-thou commentary.

Do you have any solutions? People have been trying to fix the inner cities of Baltimore for 50 years now. No success whatsoever. If anything it’s gotten worse. The only solution I see from the liberals is to just throw more money after bad, and I’m a liberal saying this.

Actually, we do know what possible solutions could be that could do something meaningful but we won’t do it because it requires turning large parts of Baltimore into a military state. And we don’t do that in America. So there is really no solution that we can accept and tolerate.

DP The solution isn't more policing but a fundamental change in culture....which is very difficult to achieve. The toxic masculinity of the black culture, which has been written about extensively by black scholars, is the root of much of the evil that happens in Baltimore. You can throw all the money you want at better schools, workforce training, etc. but it will all come to naught of the culture doesn't change.

This is a load of crap. That isn't "black culture," that's poor/lower socioeconomic culture. If it were "black culture," middle class and UMC black people would be behaving like that. You're ignorant as hell and likely get your perception of black people from TV...SMH

One can then wonder why poor whites do not quite behave in the same way? Poor white neighborhoods can be just as riddled with drugs but are rarely, if ever, as violent.

Let's call it poor/lower socioeconomic black culture.

Or poor latinos.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not murdering anyone. Neither are my neighbors.

If every person in Baltimore could just do that, and THAT alone, this problem would be solved.

Don't preach to me. I grew up poor AF in southwestern VA in a little squalid mining town you've never even heard of. Everyone was I knew was poor. But we didn't kill each other.

And this is why you're not an expert at solving the problems of inner cities. Don't have any actual ideas that might work in the real world? Then no need to spit out your holier-than-thou commentary.

Do you have any solutions? People have been trying to fix the inner cities of Baltimore for 50 years now. No success whatsoever. If anything it’s gotten worse. The only solution I see from the liberals is to just throw more money after bad, and I’m a liberal saying this.

Actually, we do know what possible solutions could be that could do something meaningful but we won’t do it because it requires turning large parts of Baltimore into a military state. And we don’t do that in America. So there is really no solution that we can accept and tolerate.

DP The solution isn't more policing but a fundamental change in culture....which is very difficult to achieve. The toxic masculinity of the black culture, which has been written about extensively by black scholars, is the root of much of the evil that happens in Baltimore. You can throw all the money you want at better schools, workforce training, etc. but it will all come to naught of the culture doesn't change.

This is a load of crap. That isn't "black culture," that's poor/lower socioeconomic culture. If it were "black culture," middle class and UMC black people would be behaving like that. You're ignorant as hell and likely get your perception of black people from TV...SMH

One can then wonder why poor whites do not quite behave in the same way? Poor white neighborhoods can be just as riddled with drugs but are rarely, if ever, as violent.

Let's call it poor/lower socioeconomic black culture.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not murdering anyone. Neither are my neighbors.

If every person in Baltimore could just do that, and THAT alone, this problem would be solved.

Don't preach to me. I grew up poor AF in southwestern VA in a little squalid mining town you've never even heard of. Everyone was I knew was poor. But we didn't kill each other.

And this is why you're not an expert at solving the problems of inner cities. Don't have any actual ideas that might work in the real world? Then no need to spit out your holier-than-thou commentary.

Do you have any solutions? People have been trying to fix the inner cities of Baltimore for 50 years now. No success whatsoever. If anything it’s gotten worse. The only solution I see from the liberals is to just throw more money after bad, and I’m a liberal saying this.

Actually, we do know what possible solutions could be that could do something meaningful but we won’t do it because it requires turning large parts of Baltimore into a military state. And we don’t do that in America. So there is really no solution that we can accept and tolerate.

DP The solution isn't more policing but a fundamental change in culture....which is very difficult to achieve. The toxic masculinity of the black culture, which has been written about extensively by black scholars, is the root of much of the evil that happens in Baltimore. You can throw all the money you want at better schools, workforce training, etc. but it will all come to naught of the culture doesn't change.

This is a load of crap. That isn't "black culture," that's poor/lower socioeconomic culture. If it were "black culture," middle class and UMC black people would be behaving like that. You're ignorant as hell and likely get your perception of black people from TV...SMH

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not caring about the largest city in your state is a fairly limited worldview.

I look at it this way. One PP is right, Washington (obviously, not a Maryland city) is the economic driver of Maryland.

At the end of the day, the point is this. Given the current political climate and it's disdain for this region, economic growth in the region will likely be limited as the Fed Government stands pat or shrinks. I just do not see the Federal Government driving much more growth. Amazon may come but growth in Maryland is going to depend on non-government dependent business being willing to move to the state. As the biggest city in the state and being in a good location along the East Coast corridor, it would be stupid for people in MoCo to write Baltimore off. We may need it soon.

Wtf. We need Baltimore now. It has one of the finest teaching hospitals in the world, a world class university, and a gorgeous tourist destination harbor.

I think people would rather go to DC The Wharf or National Harbor over Inner Harbor these days.

You don't keep funding something that doesn't work. Where are the metrics of success? what has the fund achieved?

Anonymous wrote:PP, you’re obviously thoughtful and unlike so many on DCUM are informed about the topic you’re discussing...thank you for the post. Do you have any thoughts on ways to reverse the decline in Baltimore?

I do. Just not popular ones. Crime is the most problematic issue facing Baltimore because it underpins so many of the other factors affecting people's decisions to live and work in the city. What can one do about the persistent crime problem? It's true that it's primarily drug-related and if you're not involved in the drug world you are far less likely to be affected beyond petty crimes (which, once again, are largely to obtain money for drug purposes). Still, crime has ruined many areas of the city and makes gentrification difficult for other areas. After so many decades of failed policies and initiatives the crime remains persistent. A less kind society (frankly, most of the world) would just turn Baltimore into a military state. Build military camps in east and west Baltimore and have military men and tanks patrol the streets and actively be part in cracking down on crime. Crime would disappear literally overnight if this happened. But we don't do this in America. We're not a military state but a civic state and we don't accept this level of intrusion by military forces. Even throwing many more policemen on the streets is only partially an answer as we saw with the Freddie Gray situation for there's huge tensions between the police and the low income elements that are involved and live around the crime-ridden, drug-ridden areas of the city. Reforming drug laws by decriminalizing hard drugs could potentially be a solution by removing control of the drug trade away from the criminals and placing it in the hands of the law-abiding, but this is no surety and may even exacerbate the drug addiction problem and create a different set of problems.

As much of the problem, including crime, stems from the same 10-20% of the city's residents, it's just as much due to underlying cultural factors. The high concentration of these people in the same districts of the city means these cultural factors become exacerbated and feeds upon itself. A solution would be to forcibly break up the ghettos. A dictator could order forced resettlements of people (in smaller groups) across a wider region where they could be absorbed into local communities with higher standards and with the hopes that the cultural standards of these new communities would serve as inspirations and help weaken the poor values holding back the Baltimore poor. But, as mentioned, we don't do this in America. Politically unacceptable, certainly legally unacceptable. The closest approach has been using Section 8 vouchers to help voluntarily resettle families into better areas and the counties, but those have come with side effects, namely often weakening the areas the Section 8 people moved into. When the public housing projects were demolished in Baltimore in the early 1990s, the residents were given rent vouchers and what happened was that they moved into neighborhoods they could afford, which were already borderline/struggling areas, and literally overnight caused a major flight out of those areas (Northeast Baltimore was heavily white as recent as 1990 and this was one area where rent vouchers really propelled the decline and white flight of middle class residents).

Ironically, there is a significant downside to dispersing poor people across a wider suburban region. The advantage of the urban city was that it was much easier to concentrate resources they needed in a smaller area also easily accessible. Poor families could survive in Baltimore using the buses or walking and reach the social services they needed easily, whereas that's not the case if living in an apartment complex in Cockeysville or Columbia. They are also much further away from jobs that do not require cars to get to. More problems!

Another problem facing Baltimore and one that doesn't get as much talk as the other issues but it's still a very real one and that is so much of the city's housing stock is derelict and out of date. Miles after miles of old working class rowhouses that no one wants to live in because they're too cramped, they can't be renovated cheaply enough to justify the expenses, the area is derelict and underpopulated. While there are certain blocks or neighborhoods worth preserving or adjacent to gentrifying areas and could be the next wave in gentrification, most are not in those positions. Ideally I'd love to have a land bank program where the city condemns entire underpopulated neighborhoods and clears it for the raw land either for redevelopment on a large scale (like what Hopkins did to an extent) or simply hold it for future development. But this is politically unacceptable as it'd require the extensive use of eminent domain and socially unacceptable by forcing people to leave neighborhoods and houses, even with good intentions and ideas of resettling them in other areas to make them stronger neighborhoods.

Just about everything that can be done within the acceptable frameworks of politics and policy has been done in Baltimore. When they don't work, the supporters cry for more and more money, but the money is just a band aid on a problem and doesn't solve the problem, which boils down to a high concentration of culturally dysfunctional people in a small area. Until you break up that concentration, you will not see much meaningful change. The next 20-30 years will be no different from the last 20-30 years. Slow but steady redevelopment and gentrification within the "white L" with some slight expansion particularly going north of Patterson Park towards Hopkins, and Pigtown/Hollins Market, but the deep east and west Baltimore and Park Heights areas will continue to be what they are and will not change.

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Anonymous wrote:I am from Baltimore and I’m not entirely upset. The state and the Fed have poured billions into Baltimore over the last few decades with little to show for it but persistent problems that never get better. It really is not fair to the rest of the state to keep dumping money into Baltimore. The problems are much deeper than what money can solve. It’s throwing more money after bad.

I’m also astute enough to know that just about all the redevelopment money that is pouring into Baltimore is private money. And that money is making a difference. The key safe parts of the city have grown and gotten better and more desirable. The state didn’t have a role in that.

I will be supporting Hogan because his responsibilities are to the entire state, not just Baltimore. And he’s done a good job from that perspective.

Let’s be frank. Even O’Malley didn’t do much for Baltimore once he became governor despite having been the mayor.

Is the more then ten percent of the state population that live in Baltimore or the fifty percent of the state that live in the greater Baltimore area not Hogan’s constituents? He has repeatedly screwed Baltimore kids by underfunding the Thornton requirememts and killed the red line which would have created 10,000 jobs in Baltimore and solved a long standing public transportation problem that makes it difficult for many city residents to get to to jobs. He then compounded the problem by dramatically cutting bus services to inner city neighborhoods,

It is ironic that the law and order governor has seen the Baltimore murder rate double during his time in office.

As long as Baltimore is in its current condition, it is going to repress business development throughout the state. No man lives in a bubble—as Baltimore goes, so goes the state.

The Baltimore suburbs have no love for the city. Spend some time in the burbs and you’ll soon realize that. Few voters in the suburbs will be voting based on what Hogan does or does not do for the city.

Baltimore City is still an economic center but it’s far less important than it was 50 years ago. Washington is the real economic machine for Maryland.

I live in Baltimore County and work in Baltimore city, but thanks for incorrectly explaining the political dynamics of my community to me.

Baltimkre city resident here. The suburbs do not love the city. There is a very long history of racial and social divides between the city and the suburbs. A lot of people, and I mean a lot, thoroughly despise the city. It’s unfortunate but also understandable.

Again, thanks for explaining my community to me but your stereotype is just as off as the other one. Most of my neighbors work inthe city, send their kids to private schools in the city and by no means despise the city. You have to go out to the rural outer suburbs to find the attitude you are describing.

Or Parkville, Perry Hall, White Marsh, Essex, Dundalk, Linthincum, Owings Mills (and, of course, leaving out the northern Baltimore suburbs and Carroll and Harford and AA counties, and Howard might as well be on a different planet).

I'm not quite sure what community you're referring to as the region isn't a single community but 2.5 million people, of whom the vast majority, as borne by census data, do not work in Baltimore city but live and work in the suburbs and are more likely to work in other suburban counties than Baltimore City.

I grew up in Baltimore City. It's my home. I own property in Baltimore City. I love Baltimore. But I'm in no denial when it comes to the realities of city/suburban split. And even within the city. Do you think the good folks of Roland Park live in the same "community" as the people in Park Heights or Belair Edison or Sandtown-Winchester? The "White L"is a real thing. So many people who love Baltimore City live their lives within the "White L" and rarely stray east or west of it. People may talk the talk but when it comes to reality, it rarely translates into anything more than good feelings and not effective policy. When I was growing up in comfortable North Baltimore we used to joke that you needed a passport to go to other parts of Baltimore, for that was how strange it was to us, even if it was only a few miles (or less) away.

As for the suburbs, I grew up listening to so many suburbanites talk about their old childhood neighborhoods in Baltimore (or their parents) and how it used to be nice at one time but sadly no more (and of course the unsaid but implied bit left out was that the black people moved in and ruined it). I worked in Baltimore County for years with residents of Towson and Cockeysville who refused to come to the city and had no idea that places like Roland Park existed. The typical county resident looks at the city news, hears about the violence, shrugs and thinks, typical for Baltimore and doesn't care beyond that. And now it's not just the white flight, but the large black middle classes that have moved out to the suburbs too, eager to leave behind the city and its problems.

In other words, you cannot easily dismiss the contempt or indifference of so many people in the counties for the city. And it is understandable. People see the city as dysfunctional and helpless. They see much of the city's problems (high taxes, crime, drugs) as consequences of the actions of the people in the city. And why should it be their problem? It's an ongoing dysfunctionalism that's now lasted two generations with no end or solution in sight.

The Baltimore suburbs voted for Hogan in the last election. The suburbs voted for Ehrlich heavily when he first ran, and when Ehrlich lost his re-election four years later, even then the suburbs narrowly voted for him over O'Malley, despite O'Malley's advantages of a popular young mayor during a time when the city seemed to be rebounding and also, of course, running during the staunchly anti-republican wave of 2006. There will certainly be people (like you) angry with Hogan for not doing more for Baltimore, but for the rank and file of Baltimore suburban voters, it makes no difference. They will be judging Hogan on other grounds, not the city.

This is utter and complete nonsense. No one in Towson or Cockeysville doesn’t know where Roland Park is unless they are a complete moron, and a substantial number of them send their kids to school in Roland Park as it is literally a few miles away. Towson directly borders Baltimore city, for God’s sake. I don’t know who you worked with, but they sound like idiots, and certainly weren’t representative of the County. Your assertion is like saying residents in Bethesda don’t go to dc or know where Cleveland Park is liocated, completely ridiculous. The overwhelming majority of people in this area of the County work in Baltimore. And guess what, more than a quarter of the county population is African American, and close to half is non-Caucasian— so of people are here to avoid minorities as you claim, they didn’t do a very good job of it.

O’Malley won in 2006 because he won Baltimore County. The Baltimore County executive has been a Democrat for many years. Ehrlich and Hogan won because the democrats nominated particularly weak candidates. When Ehrlich had a record to run on, he lost.

Ehrlich won Baltimore County in 2006. Look it up. Or if you're too lazy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland_gubernatorial_election,_2006 O'Malley did substantially eat away at his previous margin in the 2002 election but the comment is still valid, Ehrlich won the Baltimore suburbs as a whole. When the city with its heavily lopsided Democratic majority is factored in then O'Malley won the region, but splitting the city from the suburbs, Ehrlich narrowly won the suburbs.

I suspect you live in a fairly narrow world, likely a world of highly educated and affluent people who are more open to the city for its cultural and social amenities. There are certainly people in Cockeysville who have never heard of Roland Park. They just don't move in your circles. You are also not familiar with the long history of white flight. The counties have substantially diversified in the last 20 years but up through the 1980s the white flight factor from the city was a very real thing. The county itself is also racially divided but that's a different story. You may enjoy reading this wonderful analysis on the history of bigotry in the Baltimore region, including the Baltimore County politics: https://www.amazon.com/Not-My-Neighborhood-Bigotry-American/dp/1566638437

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Anonymous wrote:Why is it everyone else's duty in the state of Maryland to worry about Baltimore?

I'm in Calvert. I couldn't give a damn about Baltimore. As I'm sure people in Baltimore couldn't give a damn about my tiny little town. Why would they? That's dumb.

Because it is where a good chunk of the population is employed and a healthy Baltimore would attract more business to Maryland, making it less dependent on the federal government for employment.

Look at a map of Maryland.


I live in a little no-stoplight town on the Bay called Cove Point. I work in DC. Most people here work either at NAS PAX River or other places in southern MD, or in DC. I don't know a single person who even knows anyone who works in Baltimore. You make Baltimore sound like some kind of commerce hub for the entire state.

It isn't.

It's a medium sized city with a violent crime/drug problem, awful schools, terrible property values, a struggling economy (outside of banking and healthcare) and a suffering tourist industry because of the reputation of the city.

It means nothing to me, or anyone else I know here 60 miles away

And as a resident of Montgomery County I can't think of a single reason to visit Baltimore.
Baseball - I hop the Metro to see the Nationals.
Football - we support the Redskins in PG County.
Museums - DC

There just isn't any reason to drive 45-60 minutes in non rush hour up 95 to Baltimore. There isn't anything there we don't have. Vacation in my state - well I head to the Eastern Shore. Quicker to get out 50 then to get to Baltimore.

Sorry...not gonna make it my village...nope.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not caring about the largest city in your state is a fairly limited worldview.

I look at it this way. One PP is right, Washington (obviously, not a Maryland city) is the economic driver of Maryland.

At the end of the day, the point is this. Given the current political climate and it's disdain for this region, economic growth in the region will likely be limited as the Fed Government stands pat or shrinks. I just do not see the Federal Government driving much more growth. Amazon may come but growth in Maryland is going to depend on non-government dependent business being willing to move to the state. As the biggest city in the state and being in a good location along the East Coast corridor, it would be stupid for people in MoCo to write Baltimore off. We may need it soon.

Wtf. We need Baltimore now. It has one of the finest teaching hospitals in the world, a world class university, and a gorgeous tourist destination harbor.

Are you kidding me? The Harbor area is grossly over priced. The attractions are over priced. There isn't a reduced in state resident price to enjoy your own state vs. the tourist.

The Hospital? You mean they one that was just caught patient dumping? World class University? You mean UMD College Park - the flag ship of the University System. And after that you can go to the Universities at Shady Grove and enjoy all of the Universities. Now if you want to go Private at JHU or Loyola that's one thing - but there is nothing stellar about anything in Baltimore City, nothing.

Anonymous wrote:Not caring about the largest city in your state is a fairly limited worldview.

I look at it this way. One PP is right, Washington (obviously, not a Maryland city) is the economic driver of Maryland.

At the end of the day, the point is this. Given the current political climate and it's disdain for this region, economic growth in the region will likely be limited as the Fed Government stands pat or shrinks. I just do not see the Federal Government driving much more growth. Amazon may come but growth in Maryland is going to depend on non-government dependent business being willing to move to the state. As the biggest city in the state and being in a good location along the East Coast corridor, it would be stupid for people in MoCo to write Baltimore off. We may need it soon.

Wtf. We need Baltimore now. It has one of the finest teaching hospitals in the world, a world class university, and a gorgeous tourist destination harbor.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many hateful people on this thread. We are one state. When murder in a part of the state is suddenly skyrocketing, while it’s dropping nationwide, it’s not smart to spew racist generalizations and ignore it. There are children in Baltimore who need a safe space to grow. I live in MoCo but Baltimore’s kids are part of my village.

You can say that but what have you done for them? When did you last visit ‘your village’?
Putting a sign out on your front lawn proclaiming stuff doesn’t count.

This year, I'm tutoring at risk kids, donating all my baby gear and donating 3% of my income to charities that support the poor. And I go to Baltimore all the time (I just went a weeks ago.) What are you doing, besides spewing hate towards an entire city on an anonymous website?

Not caring about the largest city in your state is a fairly limited worldview.

I look at it this way. One PP is right, Washington (obviously, not a Maryland city) is the economic driver of Maryland.

At the end of the day, the point is this. Given the current political climate and it's disdain for this region, economic growth in the region will likely be limited as the Fed Government stands pat or shrinks. I just do not see the Federal Government driving much more growth. Amazon may come but growth in Maryland is going to depend on non-government dependent business being willing to move to the state. As the biggest city in the state and being in a good location along the East Coast corridor, it would be stupid for people in MoCo to write Baltimore off. We may need it soon.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it everyone else's duty in the state of Maryland to worry about Baltimore?

I'm in Calvert. I couldn't give a damn about Baltimore. As I'm sure people in Baltimore couldn't give a damn about my tiny little town. Why would they? That's dumb.

Because it is where a good chunk of the population is employed and a healthy Baltimore would attract more business to Maryland, making it less dependent on the federal government for employment.

+1 And because most people, if they're not completely narcissistic, find it possible to care about other people who are not in their town.

Anonymous wrote:So many hateful people on this thread. We are one state. When murder in a part of the state is suddenly skyrocketing, while it’s dropping nationwide, it’s not smart to spew racist generalizations and ignore it. There are children in Baltimore who need a safe space to grow. I live in MoCo but Baltimore’s kids are part of my village.

You can say that but what have you done for them? When did you last visit ‘your village’?
Putting a sign out on your front lawn proclaiming stuff doesn’t count.